Partners: The partners for the first two components of the project were: Martha O’Bryan Center’s Top Floor Program, Stratford High School; YMCA Latino Achievers, Cane Ridge High School; Oasis Center with Cameron Middle School students; and Nashville Public Library Main Branch with Hume-Fogg Magnet High School students. The third part of the project was a pedestrian awareness campaign initiated by students from Hume-Fogg Magnet High School.

Educators: Chris Cheney, Teaching Artist; Michael Lapinski, Teaching Artist; Laura Wallace, Teaching Artist; Elizabeth Smith, English Teacher, Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School;  Laura Louis, English Teacher, Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School; Keri Jhaveri, Youth and Family Educator at the Frist Center; additional Frist Center Educators

Location: Nashville, TN

Christopher Cheney and participants from YMCA Latino Achievers at Cane Ridge High School
Community Impact, 2012
Mixed media

Students from YMCA Latino Achievers created a sixteen-foot print made by inking the block, laying paper over it, and then walking and stomping on the paper to create the collagraph print.   

Michael Lapinski and participants from Oasis Center
Nobody Cares, 2012
Mixed Media

At the paper and mixed media sculpture Nobody Cares, Frist Center visitors read other viewers’ responses to the prompt at the artwork to share their own gifts, offer memorials to victims of violence, or share accounts of how violence has affected their lives by writing them down and adding them to the artwork.

Students from Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School raised awareness about driver and pedestrian safety through collaborative art-making, including stenciling, spray-chalking, and stickering several downtown intersections.

Young artists celebrate the opening of Stop. Take Notice! in front of their artwork, Nobody Cares, with teaching artist Michael Lapinski and Oasis Center staff member Vanessa Lazón 

Stop. Take Notice! is a three-part project that concentrates on community issues while offering teens insight into art’s role in promoting positive social change and raising public awareness. In 2012, four interactive artworks were created to address issues relevant to teens and their communities. The following year, these artworks were recreated for an exhibition at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. In 2014, Hume-Fogg High School students raised awareness about driver and pedestrian safety through collaborative art making in several downtown intersections, which can be seen through the photographs in this exhibition. These artworks were created by friends, teachers, and classmates of Hume-Fogg student, Elena Zamora, who was tragically killed while walking in a crosswalk close to the high school in 2013. This pedestrian awareness campaign aimed to “make drivers and walkers think before acting” attracted local media attention, as well as many visitors to the website www.stoptakenotice.com, which was created by the students.